Mountain Landscapes

Mountain landscape with travelers beside a river
Mountain landscape with travelers beside a river with a bridge

One of Johann Israel Dietzch’s seven children, Johann Jakob painted and engraved still lifes and landscapes in the style of his father. Noticeably influenced by the Dutch masters, a series of six still lifes with dead game painted in tempera on parchment, are now in the Städtischen Kupferstichsammlung in Nuremberg. He is best known, however, for his small-scale battle scenes, both on land and sea, which were also invariably painted in tempera on parchment. It was especially in the richly detailed marine battle paintings, a notable group of which bears striking similarities to this pair of temperas and remains in the Hammer collection in Stockholm that Johann Jakob excelled within his competitive family.

This finely executed pair of temperas exhibits all of the hallmarks of Dietzch’s style, namely the depiction of travelers and peasants on roads in mountainous landscapesand the distinctive handling of foliage and sky (see H. Ludwig, Nürnberger naturgeschichtliche Malerlei im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Marburg am der Lahn, 1998, p. 112 and 260-1, no. 54). InDietach’s known work, landscapes were often presented in pairs, and motifs were sometimes repeated in imaginative ways (see T. Kaufmann, Central European Drawings 1680-1800: A Selection from American Collections, Princeton, 1989, p.242). For example, the non-specific mountains in the distance set a tone that is both foreboding and whimsical at the same time.